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Evaluation ViewAttendees 7

Traditional Workshop - Ticketed

Child / Adolescent - Anxiety

Workshop 12 - Transdiagnostic Brief Behavior Therapy (BBT) for Youth Anxiety and Depression

Saturday, November 16, 2024
11:30 AM – 2:30 PM EST
Location: 414/415, Level 4, Downtown Marriott
Earn 3 Credit
Ticketed Session
Keywords: Anxiety, Depression, Treatment
Level of Familiarity: Moderate
Recommended Readings: Weersing, V. R., Brent, D. A., Rozenman, M. S., Gonzalez, A., Jeffreys, M., Dickerson, J. F., ... & Iyengar, S. (2017). Brief behavioral therapy for pediatric anxiety and depression in primary care: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA psychiatry, 74(6), 571-578.,   Weisz, J. R., Fitzpatrick, O. M., Venturo‐Conerly, K. E., Sternberg, A., Steinberg, J. S., & Ng, M. Y. (2023). Research Review: The internalizing paradox–youth anxiety and depression symptoms, psychotherapy outcomes, and implications for research and practice. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 64(12), 1720-1734.,   Brent, D. A., Porta, G., Rozenman, M. S., Gonzalez, A., Schwartz, K. T., Lynch, F. L., ... & Weersing, V. R. (2020). Brief behavioral therapy for pediatric anxiety and depression in primary care: A follow-up. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 59(7), 856-867.,   Weersing, V. R., Gonzalez, A., & Rozenman, M. (2021). Brief Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Youth: Therapist Guide. Oxford University Press.,   Rozenman, M., Gonzalez, A., & Weersing, V. R. (2020). Transdiagnostic exposure-based intervention for anxiety and depression in children and adolescents. In Exposure Therapy for Children with Anxiety and OCD (pp. 361-382). Academic Press.
Anxiety and depression are collectively the most common mental health concerns in childhood and adolescence and co-occur with each other at staggering rates. Transdiagnostic interventions aim to address core processes common to anxiety and depression, and may therefore be more efficient in regards to time, clinician effort, and youths’ skill-building as compared to sequencing separate treatments for anxiety and depression. One such transdiagnostic intervention, Brief Behavioral Therapy (BBT; Weersing et al., 2021), has demonstrated efficacy for youth ages 8-16 with anxiety and/or depression when implemented by Master’s-level clinicians in pediatric primary care. BBT is brief (8-12 sessions), results in functional improvement and symptom reduction (Weersing et al., 2017) with effects sustained over the course of 32-week follow-up (Brent et al., 2020), and is cost-saving compared to community mental health treatment (Lynch et al., 2021). Recent preliminary data also support a video-visit version of BBT to increase intervention access for youth in low-resource settings (R56MH125159); this work in particular may be especially relevant in current times of national and world-wide physical and mental health crises. This clinician-focused workshop aims to introduce BBT as a treatment option for youth with anxiety, depression, or their co-occurrence. Following an introduction to the scientific evidence and theoretical underpinnings of this transdiagnostic approach, clinicians are presented with a step-by-step guide to BBT session content. Specific foci of the workshop targeting anxious avoidance and depressive withdrawal with “graded engagement” or increased approach and reduced behavioral avoidance, and use of the intervention’s problem-solving module to address symptoms, familial communication, and treatment non-compliance. Case examples and sample intervention materials are utilized throughout to supplement attendee experience.

Outline:
1. Rationale for transdiagnostic interventions in youth
2. Brief review of evidence-base for BBT and other interventions for anxiety and depression in youth
3. Focus on core behavioral mechanisms and increasing approach / reducing avoidance
4. BBT sessions 1-3 (psychoeducation, relaxation, problem-solving)
5. BBT session 4 (building an approach hierarchy)
6. BBT sessions 5-11 (enactive practice and graded engagement)
7. BBT session 12 (relapse prevention)

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, the learner will be able to:
  1. Describe theoretical and empirical rationale for why a transdiagnostic approach may be well-suited to treating youth anxiety and depression.
  2. Become familiar with and describe how core treatment techniques might be packaged and implemented using a behavioral transdiagnostic approach.
  3. Describe youth characteristics and symptoms that may be particularly well-suited for the Brief Behavior Therapy protocol.
  4. Describe and understand the session content and sequencing of skills in the Brief Behavior Therapy protocol.
  5. Discuss implementation considerations when using Brief Behavior Therapy with internalizing youth.
  6. Identify when a transdiagnostic approach might be appropriate for youth symptom presentation in clinical practice.
  7. Incorporate a graded engagement/transdiagnostic approach to treatment of youth with anxiety/depression comorbidity.
  8. Long-term Goal: To be able to apply the principles of graded engagement (increasing approach and reducing avoidance) in clinical practice with youths with a variety of complex, transdiagnostic symptom presentations.

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